job code 810.06.05, fulltime  

Application deadline: 20 April 2007

The Induction of Linguistic Knowledge (ILK) research group of Tilburg University's Department of Communication and Information Sciences (Faculty of Humanities) has openings for a full-time post-doc researcher (three years).

The position, funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), are part of the NWO Vici project Implicit linguistics: Machine learning of text-to-text processing, focusing on memory-based language modeling and machine translation. Memory-based language modeling is a classification-based take on the classical problem of predicting the next or the missing word in a sequence, and has applications ranging from spelling correction to language modeling for speech recognition and machine translation. Memory-based machine translation, analogously, is a new classification-based implementation of example-based machine translation. Underlying both goals is the development of highly scalable and parallelizable memory-based classifiers (based on the TiMBL class of algorithms developed at Tilburg University) trained on very large monolingual and bilingual textual corpora.

We are looking for an enthusiastic researcher to complete the five-person team for this project, which also consists of two part-time scientific programmers, Ph.D. student Herman Stehouwer, and Antal van den Bosch.

Profile

For the postdoc, we are looking for a researcher with a PhD in computational linguistics, computer science, or a related area, preferably with a strong track record in machine learning of natural language, or in data-driven methods for machine translation. programming skills and a good command of English (both spoken and written) are required. The project calls for an all-round team player who knows how to do fundamental research, who likes creating natural language processing software, and who enjoys coaching students and junior researchers.

Information

For more background information please contact Antal van den Bosch via email (Antal.vdnBosch@uvt.nl) or phone (+31.13.4663117).

Tilburg University is rated among the top Dutch employers, offering excellent terms of employment. The collective labour agreement of Tilburg University applies. The selected candidate starts with a full-time contract for one year, concluded by an evaluation. Upon a positive outcome of the first-year evaluation, the candidate will be offered an employment contract for the remaining two years.

The selected candidate for the postdoc researcher position starts with a full-time contract for one year, concluded by an evaluation. Upon a positive outcome of the first-year evaluation, the candidate will be offered an employment contract for the remaining two years. The candidate will be ranked in the Dutch university job ranking system (UFO) as a researcher (onderzoeker 4) with a starting salary of minimally EUR 2.852 gross per month.

Applications

Applications should include cover letter, CV, and names of two references. Application letters should be sent before the application deadline of April, 20, 2007, by regular mail to mr. P. van Balen, Human Resources, Faculty of Humanities, Room D302, Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, NL-5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands, or by email to solliciterenFDL@uvt.nl. In your letter, please refer to job code 810.06.05.

Tilburg University

Tilburg University is an institution for higher education, located in the south of the Netherlands, specializing in humanities and social sciences. Tilburg University is known for its high standards in education and research as well as its good support facilities. In national annual rankings Tilburg University takes top positions. The compact campus offers ample opportunity to meet staff and students. Of a student population of over 11,000, 5% are international students.

Department of Communication and Information Sciences

Education and research of the Department of Communication and Information Sciences are organized around the themes of language technology, human-machine interaction, multimodality and cognition, business communication and digital media, and discourse studies. The department's inspiring working environment stimulates its employees to realize their ambitions.

It is the policy of the university to increase the number of women employed. Also members of ethnic minority groups and handicapped people are expressly invited to apply.